The new Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have changed the focus of writing in middle school. In the past, more emphasis was put on narrative writing–telling a story with a plot, rising action, and a climax, while including rich, descriptive details. This type of writing is still important, and language arts teachers still teach it. However, there are two other types of writing that are of equal importance and more rigorous instruction in them will help make our students more college and career ready.Informational writing, the type commonly done with research projects, is another writing focus under CCSS. There is a lot of this going on at MPMS, on both a large and small scale. Teachers have students do informational writing all the time after they have done a bit of research on a variety of topics.The third type of writing is being taught right now in an exciting, thorough way through 7th grade language arts classes. Augumentative writing introduces a claim, and includes evidence to support that claim. In the past, it’s been called persuasive writing, but the difference lies with the evidence. Students must fully understand their topics and cite textual evidence to support whatever claims they are making.In the 7th grade classes, each student came up with a societal problem. Some examples are: gang violence, pollution, animal abuse, discrimination. Students conducted research over several days, and are in the process of writing essays about possible solutions to the problems. This type of writing can be used for many functions as students go to college and on to the career world.You can see an explanation of the different types of writing and some great student examples at the CCSS site.